Russia struck Ukraine with 430 drones and 68 missiles on the night of 13–14 March, the heaviest combined barrage in months1. The missile volley comprised one Zirkon hypersonic, seven Iskander-M ballistic, 25 Kalibr cruise, and 24 Kh-101 cruise missiles. Ukrainian air defences intercepted 402 drones (93.5%) and 58 missiles (85.3%). Four people were killed and 15 wounded in Kyiv region2. Energy infrastructure was the primary target across four districts.
The barrage was the latest in an escalating series. On 2 March, the Ukrainian General Staff recorded 8,828 kamikaze drones in 24 hours — triple the 2025 daily average. On 7 March, 29 missiles and 480 drones struck energy targets in a single night. Weekly Russian drone launches now exceed 9,000. The industrial base sustaining this tempo rests on the Alabuga plant in Tatarstan and expanded domestic production that sanctions have not disrupted.
The strike came with no diplomatic process imposing restraint. The US-Russia-Ukraine trilateral has been suspended since 4 March; no date has been set for resumption. The cost asymmetry compounds the pressure: each Shahed costs Russia a fraction of what Ukraine must spend to intercept it, and the Iran war has further strained Patriot stocks. The ten missiles that penetrated defences on this single night translated directly into infrastructure damage and civilian casualties.
Energy targeting follows Russia's established winter campaign doctrine, now in its fourth year: degrade Ukraine's power grid during the final weeks of cold weather to raise civilian pressure on Kyiv. Each successive barrage finds less redundancy in the grid to destroy. It also finds less capacity remaining to lose.
